Many outdoor sporting and hobby activities such as horseback riding, expose the rider to the full spectrum of sunlight when carried out during the daytime. Since riders and others outdoors are engaged in enjoyable activities, they tend to play and ride outdoors for extended periods of time. During this time the riders can therefore have their skin exposed to a considerable amount of sunlight which can cause sunburn and skin damage. Even with protective sunscreen lotion on their skin, such riders are still exposed for prolonged periods to light spectrums not blocked by sunscreen and to the UV light blocked by sunscreen which has deteriorated.
Such prolonged exposure to sunlight can cause skin aging, sunburn, and cellular damage, especially to the skin of the face, since the majority of the rest of the body may be covered by clothing. Such damage, in addition to an aged appearance, can also result in skin cancer. Consequently, a shading of the face is especially preferable, especially in sports like horseback riding.
The sport of horseback riding conventionally employs helmets for riders. However, for fashion, tradition, or other reasons, most riding helmets possess little or no bill projecting forward of the front of the helmet. The conventional bills are deficient to shade even the forehead of the user sufficiently and totally lack a distance of extension that will provide shade to the face of the user.
One reason for the lack of such an extending bill, is the fact that horseback riders, during a riding session, are mounted on horseback. Situated on a saddle or horse, with their torso extending even higher, positions the rider's head a considerable distance above the head of a human simply walking on the ground. Consequently, riders are in danger of striking low hanging branches, wires, and other hazards while moving on horseback, which are not encountered by walkers. For this reason, and for tradition and fashion purposes, the riding helmet bill lacks extension from the helmet, lest it block the user's view overhead which allows them to duck or otherwise avoid hazards.
Visors adapted to fit the head of users exist, however conventional such visors lack sufficient extension forward of the user's face, to shade the entire face from the overhead sun. Further, such visors are generally formed from canvas or cotton material and stiffeners which can make them heavy during long periods of wear. Still further, such visor bills are solid and impair the overhead view of the user and are thus not advisable for use in horseback riding, lest the rider fail to see an overhead hazard and become injured during a ride.
Additionally, such visors are highly prone to dismounting from their engagement to the rider's helmet due to frictionally engaging systems for the visor which easily dismount during riding of a horse. Such separations of the visor from the helmet are caused by the wind which is enhanced by the speed of the rider. Further, in wind during slow or fast riding, the mounted rider moves forward and concurrently up and down along the motion of the horse. The force of wind and of the vertical translation of the head in the wind makes the mounting of the visor a genuine problem since if the visor dismounts, the rider must also dismount to pick it up.
As such, there exists an unmet need for a visor which may be temporarily engaged to a riding helmet so that it may be removed for competitions and the like to maintain a conventional and traditional appearance. Such a visor should have a bill with an extension forward of the user's face sufficient to shade the entire face during the daytime and late afternoon. Such a visor with such an elongated bill should also provide the user with a view overhead during use, thereby allowing the user to duck or take evasive action from hazards overhead while elevated on a horse.
Still further, such a visor device, while adapted to engage on a helmet, should have sufficient inward bias to maintain a grip on the helmet during high speed riding of the horse. However, the band gripping the helmet, should also be of a material that is soft and will slide easily over the forehead of the user should the visor be mounted to their head without the helmet.
Finally, in addition to a biased inward mount to the exterior of the riding helmet, a visor device should also provide means for an easy engagement of the visor to the helmet which enhances resistance to dismount from wind force, as well as the rider horizontal and vertical movements while riding. Such a visor with an easily engaged and released means to maintain it in its mount on the riding helmet during all types of rider movement, would encourage use by riders.
In this respect, before explaining at least one embodiment of the helmet and head engageable visor with extended bill herein in detail, it is to be understood that the invention is not limited in its application to the details of construction and to the arrangement of the components set forth in the following description or illustrated in the drawings nor the steps outlined in the specification. The disclosed visor for head or helmet engagement providing overhead viewing through the bill, is capable of other embodiments and of being practiced and carried out in various ways as those skilled in the art will readily ascertain once educated in the novel device and method of this application.
Also, it is to be understood that the phraseology and terminology employed herein are for the purpose of description and should not be regarded as limiting in any manner. As such, those skilled in the art will appreciate that the conception upon which this disclosure is based may readily be utilized as a basis for designing other methods and systems for carrying out the several purposes of the engageable head visor device with extended bill as disclosed herein. It is important, therefore, that the claims be regarded as including such equivalent construction insofar as they do not depart from the spirit and scope of the present invention.